“An age-worn poet dying amid strangers in a humble village home, leaves the record of his life in a pile of manuscript poems. These are claimed by a friend and comrade of the poet, but, at the request of the cottagers, he reads them over before taking them away. The poet’s life is divided into seven books or ‘notes,’ because seven notes seem to make up the gamut of life.... This is the simple but unique plan, ... which ... forms but the mere outline of a remarkably fine study of the hopes, aspirations, and disappointments of life, ... an American modern life.... The author sees poetry, and living poetry, where the most of men see prose.... The objection, so often brought against our young poets, that form outweighs the thought, cannot be urged in this instance, for the poems of Prof. Raymond are full of keen and searching comments upon life. Neither can the objection be urged of the lack of the human element. ‘A Life in Song’ is not only dramatic in tendency, but is singularly realistic and acute.... The volume will appeal to a large class of readers by reason of its clear, musical, flexible verse, its fine thought, and its intense human interest.”—_Boston Transcript._ “Professor Raymond is no dabbler in the problem of the human spirit, and no tyro in the art of word painting, as those who know his prose works can testify. These pages contain a mine of rich and disciplined reflection, and abound in beautiful passages.”—_Hartford Theological Seminary Record._ “Here are lines which, if printed in letters of gold upon the front of every pulpit, and practised by every one behind one, would transform the face of the theological world.... In short, if you are in search of ideas that are unconventional and up-to-date, get ‘A Life in Song,’ and read it.”—_Unity._ “Some day Dr. Raymond will be universally recognized as one of the leaders in the new thought-movement.... He is a poet in the truest sense. His ideals are ever of the highest, and his interpretation is of the clearest and sweetest. He has richness of genius, intensity of human feeling, and the refinement of culture. His lines are alive with action, luminous with thought and passion, and melodious with music.”—_Cleveland World._ “The main impulse and incident of the life are furnished by the enlistment of the hero in the anti-slavery cause. The story of his love is also a leading factor, and is beautifully told. The poem displays a mastery of poetic rhythm and construction, and, as a whole, is pervaded by the imaginative quality which lifts ‘a life’ into the region of poetry,—the peculiar quality which marks Wordsworth.”—_Christian Intelligencer._